How do I disable my Windows Startup sound?

When I turn on my notebook computer, there is a sound or "music" as it powers up...just as I see the logo...and before it gets to Windows... How do I disable this "sound"/"music"...? It's very distracting in a business meeting and/or classroom.

Dave's Answer:

Actually, it's pretty easy to disable the Windows login sound and related sounds. That's done by going to Start --> Settings --> Control Panels then selecting the Control Panel "Sounds and Audio Devices".

Click on the "Sounds" tab and it'll look like this:

Scroll down just a bit and you'll find Start Windows and Windows Logon:

Windows Sound and Audio Devices: Start Windows

Those are the two you want to change or disable entirely. To change them, click on the pop-up menu that currently says "Windows XP Startup" on my screenshot above.

To disable them is a bit unintuitive: You need to also click on the pop-up menu, but this time you're interested in the top option:

Windows Sound and Audio Devices: New Sound: None

Select (None), click on "Apply" and you should be able to restart your computer with considerably less interruption next time you're in a meeting or at a class.

Good luck!

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Categorized: Windows PC Help (Article 6589, Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: disable startup chime, mute windows, windows startup
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Reader Comments To Date: 37

Leslie said, on June 3, 2006 10:40 PM:

I have a just recently purchased sony vaio laptop, and it plays a little jingle as soon as I turn the computer on, before it starts booting up. This happens when my computer is set on mute, and I don't see any options on that window to disable that specific sound. I'm going to be using my laptop in college next year, and I don't want to create a distraction in the classroom. Do you have any suggestions for me?

Seth said, on June 11, 2006 11:42 PM:

Hold F2 while the computers booting and you'll enter BIOS mode. From there go to advanced and turn off the logo thing. Hope this helps.

Bill said, on October 17, 2006 8:27 AM:

Thanks. This worked like a charm. It is (was) annoying as h*ll to have my laptop blast the Windows logon tune each time I logged on.

Good thing my automated feedback poster can do simple math! Bahaha. 19+16=34.

Bill said, on October 17, 2006 8:27 AM:

Thanks. This worked like a charm. It is (was) annoying as h*ll to have my laptop blast the Windows logon tune each time I logged on.

Good thing my automated feedback poster can do simple math! Bahaha. 19+16=34.

Lighty said, on March 19, 2007 3:57 PM:

Do you know a way to turn the thing off if the Start menu's Control Panel button is not there (admin-disabled)?

meera said, on April 6, 2007 6:47 AM:

i have some problems for video encoding. i have using imtoo encoder but they not work completely because restart my computer. what can i do please tel me

Persion # 0 said, on May 7, 2007 3:32 PM:

I changed my start up sound to an edited speech of illidan from the warcraft burnng cruscade movie thing. It's a wav file just like the orignal start up sound. Well when i turn my computer on, it works....but only plays like the first 4 seconds of it. Is there a time limit on how long the startup sound has to be? And can i change it?

amith said, on July 30, 2007 11:51 PM:

The sound was pretty annoying and usually would disturb my sleeping child.

If I were to search at on Windows help, it would have to taken me years to find this information
Thanks for the putting it on the web, easy to find over google.

Ashleigh said, on September 17, 2007 5:59 PM:

hey umm i have a prob with my comp.. it plays random music on the startup and keeps on continuing till i turn the sound off! how do i make it go away!!!?

MiFTahhur said, on March 9, 2008 11:23 AM:

the problems is my windows startup sounds is disable.i already activate the sound option in the control panel->windows default scheme sounds..can you help me?i use Intel pentium Dualcore 2,66 gHz,windows XP Service pack 1.....you can email me at miftahhur_rahman@yahoo.com....thanks...

gopi said, on March 16, 2008 3:12 AM:

hi my problem is how to change the logon/logoff sound.

Lucia Dodge said, on June 1, 2008 6:50 PM:

I did exactly as you said to try to disable the startup sound on Windows XP... it didn't work for me. I tried it 3 times. Can you help?

Dadha Aminjan Kumar R said, on June 16, 2008 4:12 AM:

Hi,

I tried the steps those are provided above before itself. Here the thing is different. In my laptop I don't get start up or shut down sound evenif sound settings are correct in control panel.

Is there any way to get it back on to its normal functioning?

Steve said, on October 6, 2008 6:25 PM:

XP and Vista both have C:\Windows\Media.

There you'll finf the .wavs labeled for all Windows sounds.

Simply copy the ones you want to change to a backup folder, then replace the one's in the media folder with .wav's of your choice.

Steve said, on October 25, 2008 6:52 AM:

Thanks for the tip - easily found, saved a lot of time.

I wanted to stop the sounds on both startup and shutdown. I'm guessing most people would want to stop the shutting down sounds too? So, also disable Exit Windows and Windows Logoff.

Best wishes,

Steve

Matt said, on November 15, 2008 3:55 PM:

I'm having a different kind of problem. We just installed a fresh copy of MediaCenter2002 +SP3(hard drive failed and used OEM disk to reinstall) and the sound works fine once we're at the desktop. The startup and shutdown sounds are never played however. In control panel, I can select EXIT WINDOWS and play the sound with the > arrow.. and can do this for START WINDOWS too.. but still the sounds never play on boot or shutdown! I don't know why this bothers me so much, but I'd like to fix it! I've tried = Kelly's Korner - line 211 - Restore Startup and Shutdown Sounds
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm... and that didn't work. ANY OTHER IDEAS you might have before I pull my hair out???

jason said, on November 22, 2008 7:37 PM:

i know how to change the startup sound in xp but it only plays the first few seconds. How do i get it to play the whole song?

azhar said, on December 26, 2008 8:02 PM:

hi thanks for all the info that u have provided in this page it helped me a lot .. thank u very much

James said, on February 6, 2009 8:10 AM:

I had my PC cleaned and lost all my drivers. Can I get them back? ( Windows XP) Jim

Dianne said, on February 26, 2009 8:08 AM:

Thank you for posting this- it made it very easy to get that irritating noise off my puter. you rock!

faisal said, on February 27, 2009 1:27 AM:

Dear All,i have a problom,im running an internet cafe,problom is sound automatically disabled in all systems,then i restart it its working for few minutes.please help me...

Enviro Inventor said, on April 24, 2009 7:29 AM:

If you can't quickly turn the sound off when you want to, just plug a headphone set or jack adapter into the headphone port to silence your computer. I keep a one inch jack Y-adapter that I use with my cell phone head set and external speakers readily available for quick use.

Lorene Kraft said, on May 5, 2009 7:21 AM:

on my desktop I managed to turn off that awful scratching sound when my dialup was connecting. Forgot how. Please help me do this on my new refurbished laptop without a manual. I just found your site and think it is very nice. An old lady trying to learn more about my computer. Thanks so much.

raman said, on May 15, 2009 3:19 AM:

how to change my window logon name and start name

Keith said, on May 24, 2009 7:46 AM:

I thank you muchly for curing my Startup Sound Embarassment Syndrome! You and all the humans who take the time to help people you don't even know are my heroes.

bbudd said, on March 11, 2010 5:18 PM:

In win 7 just right click the sound icon in the taskbar-click Sound-and uncheck Play Windows Startup Sound. Also there to change or disable other sounds

sandeep kumar said, on April 20, 2010 9:32 PM:

sir/madam

my computer sound is automaticaly is disable and how can u solve the problem ,,,

Greg said, on September 26, 2010 2:40 PM:

Thank you I enjoy reading your answers to the questions Good work.

Question -: When I sellect a song to play the latest version of windows media player starts.
I want to change the startup windows media player to the old one windows 98 to play my music .
How do I change this setup.
Greg

Glen Lytle said, on January 21, 2011 8:30 AM:

Thank You For your Faithfullness a big help

Linda said, on February 23, 2011 8:55 AM:

HELP!! Just recently I noticed a clicking noise coming from my laptop that is hooked into a docking station. We are running IE7 here.

I have disabled the start up navitation sounds - changed them to "none", I have muted my volume and I have even plugged in a headset hoping that this would stop the incessant clicking...but I'm still hearing it. It sounds like the click/tick you get when moving from website to website. Problem is: I'm not even navigating on websites when it is happening!!!

My IT guy came over this morning and he couldn't hear it (probably isn't at the right 'tone' for his ears). At any rate - it is driving me nuts!

Do you have ANY suggestions on how to top this?

C Thu said, on June 17, 2011 11:47 PM:

Thank you

david said, on August 26, 2011 8:44 AM:

Thanks for making the unintuitive intuitive.

dk said, on August 30, 2011 8:49 AM:

this is kidding, if there anything new tell me.

jani129 said, on October 8, 2011 6:57 AM:

I'm using win 7 home prm 32 bit.
The Windows startup sound is missing from the sounds list. I chose 'no sounds'. All are turned off(100% of them).

But the damn thing still yells tee-lee-lee-ling every time i turn it on.

peter griffen said, on May 18, 2012 10:59 AM:

So how do you put a mp3 or wav file like u2 or coldplay instead of the basic crappy one as it still does not show you how to do it what i actually askd for ????

Pete said, on August 5, 2012 1:44 AM:

Ok. Submitted Aug. 2012. You want to open your laptop (assume winXP) stealthily in a meeting? The above is only HALF the answer. Enter your BIOS and make the changes to kill that annoying windows logon/logoff song. Learn how to enter BIOS from looking up your PC model on the web. The BIOS menus are easy to follow. Find something to do with 'logon' set it to or ,　and set volume to 0. Done = Stealth computer!

robb said, on November 24, 2012 4:58 PM:

Good instructions, easy to follow thanks for the help.

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!

How do I disable my Windows Startup sound?

Reader Comments To Date: 37

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!

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